RIDING DOES SO MUCH FOR 'THE SEAT'...JUST ASK JONATHON

Pssst! Over hear.... just beyond your favorite nightmare...It is I. It is Zebulon. Telling the tale of my death saddened me. That's why I've been missing. Do you want to know where I have been? Well, Papa knows, for he saw me there, drifting through the dim, cold seas of Europa (a Jovian moon). The manta-ray-people are such welcoming souls. And, since I remembered to manifest a body, their whip-like, undulating tails tickled so. I quite enjoyed it.

Other visitors were there too. Beings from afar. A bit like the merfolk back on Earth, but with dolphin like skin and nostrils up where Hindu women sometimes sport crimson. Europa is very popular. Other stars consider it the intellectual center of our solar system. Earth is too violent...too primative... too tribal. But they do like the cheese-steaks sold in Philadelphia. And the guacamole in Los Angeles, plus the pizza in New York have devoted followings too. Human eaters are particularly rare. Why waste time butchering such blubbering cry babies, when they can feast on fatter, though equally emotional, piggies? I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of the similarities bwtween the two varieties of live stock.

Seems like the improvement of the breed (the humans, I mean) will take time. How fond they are of their perverse hatreds. Worse than drugs. You know who I think will win? The micros... The 'brighten the corner where you are' people. It just seems so much easier  that way. No all encompassing, global creeds, or closing act, showy miracles are necessary. Build it all from the ground up. Jonathon actually thinks that way too. Well, deep in his heart he does. Yet so many strange and wondrous things have happened to him during this quest. Remember the ordeal in the alps? Remember the Hall of the Mountain King? Boy, wasn't that a 'mouthful'? So he exited the New Year's Service and went 'home' to change his clothes. Yes, yes, yes....of course he went back to the fine, leather bootkins and the closely tailored trousers. Why not? He looks so good in them. Lucky for him he hails from a time when 'having a firm seat' was greatly esteemed? You know how those medieval Andalucians felt about their horseflesh? Fussed a lot with their hair too, they did. His father kept two bondswomen solely for the purpose of washing, arranging and styling hair. Persians, I think they were. And why not? Such a skilled, sophisticated people they are. Have  you ever seen their miniatures? The paintings, I mean. It's been said that Spanish culture is a distillation of Persian chivalry refracted through Moorish eyes...... How poetic.

So Jonathon went back out onto the streets. Turned quite a few heads he did. The long, dark, curly hair didn't hurt. How lucky those bondswomen gave him a good once over just before he died. He went searching for Lailah. The 'fifteen' year old, naive, newborn vampirina wasn't hard to find. Her scent was still so human. Would Sarah approve? ........Why do you ask such things? We are in the midst of the Time of Atonement. Cleanse your mind. He seeks not for a paramor, but for a ward. She needs guidance. And he and the well formed French Knight will play Higgins and Pickering to her Eliza.....Sarah can be Mrs. Pierce... That is if she's interested....... For our Sarah may have a different role in mind..........

RENATE SPENDS TIME IN SODOM AND GOMORRAH

Renate drifted back from the Empire of the Twenty Six Satrapies. The sky was cool and dark. Night hawks kept her company. Far below, the pewter surface of the Dead Sea reflected a skull-like moon. The Fertile Cresent at rest. Quiet and still.

She pulled her arms in close to her body and plunged down into the depths, until she reached the lowest point on Earth. The salty brine could not harm her.  The pressure didn't matter. An inky blackness  revealed its secrets to her patient, vampire eyes.

Sodom and Gomorrah spread out before her, acres of ruins decorated the gloom. And there were whispers among the rough, stonne tombs. Voices called her name. Spirits remembered her from 'better' times. Ghostly fingers caressed her skin.

The oldest life-eater went on, till she came to a one-time house. It was her house, back before the Heavenly Storm. She survived the destruction and emerged from the maelstrom whole and unmarked. Part of God's plan....... Who can say?

And  what was she to the people then, a goddess, a witch, a healer, a whore? Who were they, these organisms unworthy of life? Were their sins unique and different from ours? Did they slaughter the innocent and cry for war? Or were they merely a wee bit self absorbed?

She allowed them to pass through her. The ghosts, I mean. Her heart knew their smiles. She called them by name. They asked her things and she answered, telling of her night-flight to the East. Was she proud of her actions? Did she relish the gore? Was the corpse fragrant? Did its children cry? She told them all.

What will happen to humanity? Where are they going? Can they forget to hate? She wasn't sure. Her own people, those we call Cro-Magnons, slaughtered Neanderthals......And it was a Neanderthal who 'made' her. Darwin was right......Survival of the fittest...... Kill or be killed.... The great apes in the vast, green forests live that way. How far have they come?

So she laid down among the incinerated ruins and went to sleep, as legions of brine shrimp passed by. Perhaps her dreams would hold an answer? And far above the other vampires and the three musicians continued with their plans...........But so did the evil jinns..........

Secrets crawled forth, running into waxy ears like insects in the night. And eager people remembered them, impatient to construct the molten eggs of hell, thrown down to  Earth but twice, in the last days of Satan's favorite war.........

Beware the omelet makers..............